JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

talmudic halakhot not mentioned by the codifiers. This work,
first published as an addendum to Kashot Meyushav, was later
printed separately (Johannisberg, 1866).
There was no early work to which Berlin did not write
glosses and explanations, as he was in the habit of annotating
every book that he read. Thus he wrote glosses to (7) the
Bible (Dyhernfurth, 1775; Lemberg, 1861); (8) the prayer book
in Tikkun Shelomo (Dyhernfurth, 1806); (9) Alfasi (Pressburg,
1836); (10) Maimonides’ Yad (Dyhernfurth, 1809); (11) Elijah
Baḥur’s Tishbi (his annotations appearing in Moses Koerner’s
Birkat Moshe, Berlin, 1834); (12) Malachi b. Jacob’s Yad Malakhi
(Berlin, 1852); (13) Elijah b. Moses de Vidas’ Reshit Ḥokhmah
(Dyhernfurth, 1811).
His unpublished works include (14) Yesh Seder la-
Mishnah, a commentary in several volumes on the Mishnah;
(15) Tena Tosefta, a commentary on the Tosefta; (16) Keneset
Ḥakhmei Yisrael, responsa; (17) Shetarei ha-Me’uḥarin, novella
on Rashi and tosafot to the Talmud, dealing with those passages
where proof was deduced from later biblical verses but
could equally well have been inferred from earlier ones; (18)
glosses and notes on the minor tractates.
Berlin was the first in Germany to interest himself in
the history of post-talmudic literature. He was also the first
to offer a solution to the problem of the identity and the period
of the paytan Eleazar *Kallir, and although his conclusions
are not accepted by scholars, they all use the extensive material
cited by him (see J. Steinhardt’s Zikhron Yosef to Oḥ
13–15).
Bibliography: A. Berliner, in: MWJ, 6 (1879), 65–89; Y.A.
Kamelhar, Dor De’ah (19352), 87–89.
[Itzhak Alfassi]
BERLIN, ISRAEL (1880–?), Russian-Jewish historian, descended
from a distinguished ḥasidic family. Berlin was educated
at a Lithuania yeshivot and moved to St. Petersburg,
where he became a member of the editorial board of the Russian
Jewish Encyclopedia (Yevreyskaya Entsiklopediya, vols.
9–16) for which he edited the sections on the geonic period
and rabbinic literature. He also contributed many basic articles
on other topics, among them the Hebrew language, the Zohar,
Ḥasidism, the Khazars, and Judaizers. He also contributed to
the periodical Yevreyskaya Starina. In his fundamental study
“Historical Settlements of the Jewish People on the Territory
of Russia” (1919), Berlin attempted to explain the origins of
Jewish settlements in Russia and trace their history up to the
end of the 16th century. This work, based on copious literary
and documentary material, was not completed. Berlin’s fate
under Soviet rule is not known.
Bibliography: B.Z. Dinur, Be-Olam she-Shaka (1958),
151–3.
[Yehuda Slutsky]
BERLIN, MOSES (1821–1888), Russian scholar and civil servant,
born in Shklov, Belorussia. Berlin wrote his first paper
in Hebrew under the Latin title Ars logica (1845). In 1849 he
berlin, naphtali Ẓevi judah
was appointed teacher in the government school for Jews in
Mogilev and in 1853 he became adviser on Jewish affairs to the
governor-general of Belorussia. He subsequently held the post
of adviser on Jewish matters at the Department of “Foreign
Religions” (1856–66). Berlin translated into Russian Joshua b.
David’s Ẓok ha-Ittim on the *Chmielnicki massacres. For his
work on the ethnography of the Russian Jews, Ocherk etnografii
yevreyskogo naseleniya v Rossii (1861), Berlin was elected
a member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Berlin
responded to the attacks on Jews and the Talmud, made in
Russian literature and the press by antisemites. He was also
active in the St. Petersburg community.
BERLIN, NAPHTALI ẒEVI JUDAH (known as ha-Neẓiv
from the initials of his name; 1817–1893), one of the leading
rabbis of his generation, and head of the yeshivah at *Volozhin
for some 40 years. He was born at Mir and already in his
early youth was famed as a great talmudic scholar. In 1831 he
married the daughter of R. Isaac b. Ḥayyim *Volozhiner who
headed the large and important yeshivah in that town. When
R. Isaac died in 1851 he was succeeded by his elder son-in-law
Eliezer Isaac. When the latter died in 1854, Berlin succeeded
him, transforming that institution of learning into a spiritual
center for the whole of Russian Jewry. In his day, the yeshivah
at Volozhin was attended by more than 400 students, among
whom were many men of great talent and unusual intellectual
caliber. He taught the whole of the Babylonian Talmud
in the order of its arrangement, without omission and with a
commentary of his own, in which he followed the system and
method of R. Elijah b. Solomon the Gaon of Vilna. He avoided
hairsplitting pilpul, being concerned only with determining
the plain meaning of the text as well as establishing its accuracy
by reference to parallel passages in the Jerusalem Talmud
and in the halakhic Midrashim. Early in life he wrote a commentary
on Sifrei (published 1959–61 in Jerusalem, in three
volumes, under the title Emek ha-Neẓiv). He ascribed great
importance to the study of geonic literature and the works of
the early authorities who lived close to the time of the Talmud.
This accounts for his special interest in the She’iltot of R. *Aḥa
of Shabḥa which he published with a commentary. It was the
most comprehensive of its kind on this work, and was titled
Ha’amek She’elah (Vilna, 1861, 1864, 1867; second edition with
addenda and corrigenda from Berlin’s manuscripts, Jerusalem,
1948–53). Berlin also devoted considerable attention to the interpretation
of the Scriptures, following again in the footsteps
of the Vilna gaon. In the yeshivah he gave a daily lesson in the
weekly portion of the Reading of the Law, an unusual innovation
in the yeshivot of his day. His commentaries on the Torah,
Ha’amek Davar, were published (Vilna, 1879–80; second edition
with addenda from manuscripts, Jerusalem, 1938) as were
those on the Song of Songs, Rinnah shel Torah (Warsaw, 1886).
In his Bible commentaries, he sought to demonstrate the consonance
of the interpretations of the Pentateuch as transmitted
in talmudic sources with the plain meaning of the Written Law
and the rules of Hebrew grammar and syntax. While steeped
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 457